Penetration Testing
Penetration Testing
Penetration Testing or simply pentesting is the action of simulating real-world cyber attacks on your systems. During the testing process, we’ll try to find all the weak points of your applications and networks just like a regular hacker would do. However, we’ll act like “good hackers”, and after the pentesting ends, we’ll provide you with a full report with all the necessary information you need in order to fix the security bugs we found and strengthen your security controls.
The Penetration Testing process helps you understand which are the most valuable assets used within your current infrastructure and what damage a real attacker could do once they’ve got access to the internal systems. It also helps developers better understand how attackers can break into the applications they develop and fine-tune their security skills.
Penetration Testing Process
The process of finding security vulnerabilities and misconfiguration gasps follows a well-defined plan which includes the following steps:
Information Gathering
This step precedes the beginning of the actual testing and aims to seek and obtain as much information as possible about the targets to be tested from an external perspective. We generate OSINT (Open Source Intelligence) about the target by collecting any information available publicly. Also, we create a map of the current network infrastructure by identifying live hosts, open ports, running services, Operating Systems used and more.
Scanning
In this phase, we use the information obtained at the previous step to fine-tune our vulnerability scanning process so that it will fit on the current target. We use automated software tools to run a set of predefined tests in order to find low-hanging security bugs. We then inspect the results identified by the scanning tools and eliminate the false positive ones. Then, depending on the system we test, we create a map of the main functionalities of the application and possible entry points and start a comprehensive manual testing analysis. We interact with the application and, by using different tests, we try to understand how it reacts to different scenarios that could have been missed by developers.
Exploiting
In the exploiting phase, we first go through the list of security vulnerabilities found within the application. Then, we start looking into each vulnerability by analyzing how far we can get into your environment once we try to exploit it. The goal of this step is to show you what is the real risk your business is exposed to when an attacker finds and exploits the security bugs we identify.
Reporting
From a business perspective, this step is considered the most crucial one since it shows you the output of the Penetration Test we’ve just performed. The data gathered up to this point is organized in the form of a report and contains all the information concerning the vulnerabilities we found, including descriptions, associated risks, steps for reproducing and technical advice on how to fix them. It also presents to you the path we followed in our testing process and the testing methodologies we used.
Re-Testing
After you review the report we deliver and developers fix the identified security vulnerabilities, we will validate the patch at no additional cost.
Penetration Testing Types
LooseByte offers Pentests for various network infrastructures and applications:
Web Applications and Services
Web applications and web services make up the largest percentage of digital products on the market today. All the functionalities integrated into your applications that take input data coming from the user may hide unknown security vulnerabilities. Security issues like SQL Injection, XSS (Cross-Site-Scripting) or XXE (XML External Entity) Processing are some examples of vulnerabilities that are usually exploited by attackers in order to gain access to computer systems.
This is why it is essential that your organization’s security level stays high. LooseByte can provide everything you need to ensure your business’ safety. Our test methodology includes both testing the web infrastructure using professional recommended tools and also manual analysis, performed by specialists with years of experience. In our tests, we also integrate methodology guidelines such as OWASP (Open Web Application Security Project) or OSSTM (Open Source Security Testing Methodology) for better and more accurate results.
Mobile Applications
Mobile applications, although most often carefully developed, may introduce a number of vulnerabilities that could endanger the confidentiality, availability, and accessibility of your software and user data. Security issues like Insecure Data Storage, Insecure Communication or Authorization Misconfigurations are some of the vulnerabilities that our experts discover frequently while pentesting mobile apps. We perform both static and dynamic analysis for applications developed on iOS and Android platforms.
Cloud Infrastructure
This security assessment is focused on your cloud infrastructure and checks your organization’s configurations on the AWS (Amazon Web Services), GCP (Google Cloud Platform) and Microsoft Azure platforms. Also, we’ll look into your assets stored in the cloud as buckets and verify if the user permission configurations are well-set, if your running applications are secure and if they don’t introduce any security issues.
Network Perimeter
The main goal for Network Penetration Testing is to point out the security vulnerabilities which exist in your internal network and result from systems misconfigurations, hardware and software flaws or insecure data flow management. We’ll map your current infrastructure, identify all the network devices (e.g.: firewalls, routers, etc.) and live hosts and check, from an intruder perspective, how your current security controls and intrusion detection services would react in case of a real attack. We’ll look for issues such as bad configurations, weaknesses in your applications and devices and overly-permissive user access controls and identify the areas where your security needs to improve.
Wireless Networks
Since their introduction, wireless networks have been rapidly expanding in their usage and availability and today every business uses them in their daily tasks. Unfortunately, many people believe that wireless networks are designed as secure solutions for data flow transfer but this is rarely the case. Deploying wireless networks may offer flexibility but doing this may also open the doors for potential attacks as it expands your organization’s logical perimeter. Security issues like authentication bypass, encryption weaknesses and client-oriented attacks can be identified through Wireless Penetration Testing. Once the vulnerabilities are identified and reported, you will be able to increase the security posture of your networks and implement a better defensive strategy to prevent attackers from accessing your networks.
Penetration Testing Approach
Black Box Testing
In a Black Box Testing approach, the Penetration Tester doesn’t have any information regarding the target system. Testers do not receive any privilege (e.g.: access in the internal network, diagrams, source code, etc.). This kind of testing is the most efficient one since it relies mostly on the skills and creativity of the hacker and it shows you what is the path a real attacker may follow.
Gray Box Testing
Gray Box Testing represents a combination of Black Box Testing and White Box Testing. The security tester gets a certain level of access to the internal network – usually, this consists of a pair of working username and password. Once being logged into the internal network, the focus can be put on those systems and networks which may be the most interesting ones for an attacker, without the need to attack applications and users or bypass the firewall.
White Box Testing
The common approach during a White Box Testing is to collect as much data as possible about the systems which are being assessed. Testers will receive any information which is related to the target applications and systems including architecture diagrams, source code access, network maps, and documentation. While it has as a main advantage an increased number of detected vulnerabilities, this testing can be time-consuming.